Two USC School of Dramatic Arts (SDA) faculty received top honors at the university’s annual Academic Honors Convocation in April. The ceremony is a chance for USC to honor its best and brightest faculty members and to recognize their achievements in teaching and scholarship.

Professor Alexandra Billings was honored with the USC Associates Award for Artistic Expression, the highest honor the university bestows upon its faculty to recognize distinguished intellectual and artistic achievements and for outstanding teaching.

Professor Rena M. Heinrich was presented with the Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award. Phi Kappa Phi is the oldest interdisciplinary honor society at USC, and membership is highly selective.

Professor Billings’ groundbreaking acting career spans four decades across theatre, film and television. She is a passionate advocate for representation and a champion of students. “The evening is an opportunity to allow [USC] to say, ‘You did a great job,’ and to put that out into the universe,” said Professor Billings. “It’s a calling card for USC and anyone who is curious, who is interested and who wants possibility in their lives.”

Professor Heinrich’s most recent book, Race and Role: The Mixed-Race Asian Experience in American Drama, filled a crucial gap in ethnic studies and theatre studies scholarship, examining a corpus of playwrights and performers portraying mixed-race Asian characters in North America dating back to the nineteenth century.

USC President Carol Folt presided over the ceremony, praising the university’s extraordinary faculty for the groundbreaking research and commitment to teaching that honorees like Professor Billings and Professor Heinrich embody.

“Each of you has accomplished incredible things that are changing the world,” President Folt said to the faculty. “We honor that work — and the ways you lift up our community and benefit humanity.”